We all know how badly the Shia were treated while under control of Saddam Hussein's Sunni government

The same Saddam Hussein that both the British and Americans used to support

The same Saddam Hussein who, when he decided he no longer wanted to sell oil through America and was in negotiations to sell through a non-US oil bourse, was (how can I put this politely) removed from government through the intervention of the international community

The same international community who failed to remove him when he

SLAUGHTERED THOUSANDS OF KURDS

The International Community obviously thought Saddam's plan to stop trading oil through America was a far worse crime than gassing thousands of Kurds

After the removal of Saddam the international supposedly help Iraq to form a new, power sharing, government

We all know the power sharing system of government did not work and the Sunnis was squeezed out of Parliment

The International Community sat back and watched Iraq collapse as the Shia vented their anger on the Sunni and the Sunni tried to take control of their homelands

A great deal of bloodshed took place during which time the International Community made NO attempt to rectify the situation or heal the growing rift between the two Islamic groups

By the time the Sunni Islamic State moved into Iraq, they were welcomed by most of the Sunni inhabitants and viewed as saviors

In my opinion, as soon as ISIS attacked the Yazidis, the International Community should have gone into Iraq in force and rounded up ISIS while they were still comparatively weak

We have watched as ISIS continued to grow from strength in both Syria and Iraq

Little or nothing was done to prevent the cross-border transportation of oil into Turkey, or a vast supply of weapons and men joining ISIS, often from Turkey

Far from being being stopped, the oil convoys appeared to have been able to travel unhindered along miles for well build highways going through legally maintained border crossings - it was not until Russia started bombing the oil convoys that the oil sales went down and ISIS had to find other ways to found themselves

Last edited by Anthea on Mon Jul 10, 2017 11:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

The International Community has FAILED to rescue THOUSANDS of Yazidi captives

The International Community has FAILED to secure the Yazidi lands

The International Community has FAILED to rebuild the Yazidi's homes

The International Community has completely FAILED the Yazidis

The International Community has FAILED to prevent weapons falling into ISIS hands while leaving the Kurds poorly armed and expecting them to do most of the on the ground face to face fighting against ISIS

For the most part all the International Community has done is play war games and dropped bombs on often INNOCENT people

We will NEVER be told the truth about how many INNOCENT people have died in Mosul

YES ISIS are BARBARIC but those who dropped bombs on Mosul are just as BARBARIC

Does anyone seriously think that the SLAUGHTER and DESTRUCTION in Mosul will heal the rift between Sunni and Shia?

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has announced that Mosul is officially free from ISIS, despite a few dozen militants making a last stand. The sound of gunfire rang out from the Old City Monday and plumes of smoke rose above the historic structures. ISIS militants have vowed to fight to the death in the few streets they still control.

It took ISIS just days to take Mosul in June of 2014, but it has taken Iraqi forces more than eight months of hard fighting to win it back. That fight, backed by militia and heavy air strikes by the US-led coalition, has left Mosul in ruins and done little to repair the sectarian tension among Iraqis.

Iraq's army and police now control most streets of the country’s second largest city, along with militia fighters. They hold their weapons next piles of rubble and bent metal that were once Mosul’s homes, shops, institutions and government buildings. Most of the structures still standing are littered with bullet and mortar holes. The bridges that use to connect the east and west sides of the city, over the Tigris River, are destroyed.

The United Nations warned Monday that an end of fighting in the city would not relieve the humanitarian crisis in the country. The organization says it will take billions of dollars and years to rebuild the city. Until then, most of nearly 1 million civilians displaced by the fighting will languish in camps in northern Iraq.

Those that remain in the city complain of a lack of water and electricity, even in areas reclaimed months ago. Today, men and boys gathered around a water tap in eastern Mosul washing their faces and filling buckets to take home.

“There’s no water, no electricity and no work,” says Taha Mohammed Ibrahim. The fighting has damaged much of the city infrastructure and while many shops and markets have reopened many more have not. Ibrahim says that every few days city water does arrive in his home, but the smell is so bad his family doesn’t use it.

Posters celebrating the army’s defeat of ISIS line the streets of eastern Mosul. Another reads: “Mosul is the city of peaceful coexistence.”

Like many here, Ibrahim is happy the government is back in control, after years under the ISIS militants. But he’s worried about a return to the sort the oppression many Sunni residents felt under Baghdad’s rule before ISIS came.

“We would queue for hours at checkpoints,” says Ibrahim. “[Security forces] would just arrest innocent people.”

At screening center nearby families arrive from Mosul’s Old City. Men and older boys are separated from women and children. They are questioned and two men on laptops checked their names against a database of those wanted by security forces.

“Ninety percent of these people are ISIS families,” says Lieutenant Colonel Jabbar Mustafa, who is in charge of the center. Those believed to be ISIS are sent to a prison in a nearby town, and the rest transferred to packed displacement camps. Human rights groups have accused security forces of torture and arbitrary detentions in centers like these, though Mustafa denies that.

The resentment of the Shia-led government in Baghdad, that facilitated ISIS' quick advance across Iraq in 2014, still festers. Many Sunnis in Mosul, and the surrounding villages welcomed ISIS three years ago, describing Iraqi forces’ presence like an occupation of the city.

Rebuilding Mosul will be expensive, but rebuilding trust among Iraqis will be even more difficult. Sunni leaders say little has been done to address the grievances of their community.

“We need to start a new page where the Sunnis will be real participants in the political process,” says Intisar Al-Jabbouri, a member of the Iraqi parliament from Mosul. “[They] need to be seen as equal citizens of Iraq and not as second degree citizens.”

Jabbouri says the government must to work to rebuild the trust and co-existence that she says they once had in Mosul and national reconciliation is key. But that hasn’t been a priority as Iraqi forces fought hard to push ISIS out the country’s cities and villages.

“It needs time and a big effort,” she says. “But if that doesn’t happen it may lead to a civil war.”

Iraqi and coalition forces fighting Islamic State (IS) militants in the city of Mosul used unnecessarily powerful weapons, an Amnesty International report says.

They deployed heavy weapons in densely-populated areas, Amnesty says.

Coalition officials have so far not commented on the allegations, but they have previously insisted they have done all they could to protect civilians.

IS fighters are also accused by Amnesty of committing serious abuses.

The militants are accused of using human shields during coalition attacks and of summarily killed hundreds - possibly thousands - of civilians, leaving bodies to hang from electricity pylons as a warning to others.

'Imprecise weapons'

Citing an eyewitness, the Amnesty report The Civilian Catastrophe in West Mosul says that bombardments by Iraqi and US-led coalition forces have killed a "huge number" of civilians.

The report calls for the formation of an independent commission to investigate the number of civilian deaths.

It examined hostilities in the west of the city from January to mid-May and accuses coalition forces of failing to adapt their tactics even when it was clear that IS militants had forced civilians into areas most likely to come under attack.

They used "imprecise weapons with wide-area effects in densely-populated urban environments", the report says, and subjected them to a terrifying barrage of fire.

The use of human shields by IS "does not lessen the legal obligation of pro-government forces to protect civilians", Amnesty's Middle East Research Director Lynn Maalouf said.

Amnesty allegations against Iraqi and coalition forces:

They carried out a pattern of attacks which "appear not to have struck their intended military targets, instead killing and injuring civilians"

Some civilian deaths and injuries appear to have resulted from an inappropriate choice of weapons or a failure to take necessary precautions to verify a target

On 17 March a US airstrike on Mosul's al-Jadida neighbourhood was carried out to kill two IS snipers - but also killed more than 100 civilians

The UK government's claim that hundreds of RAF air strikes in and around Mosul have resulted in no civilian casualties "is at best implausible"

Amnesty allegations against Islamic State forces:

They carried out a systematic campaign of forced displacement in the Mosul area, moving thousands of civilians from neighbouring villages to be used as human shields

They trapped people inside their homes by welding doors shut, rigging booby traps at exits, and summarily killing hundreds - perhaps thousands - of people attempting to escape

One witness described how militants hanged the bodies of civilians trying to flee from electricity pylons

"If you stayed, you would die in your house from the fighting," the witness said, "[but] if you tried to run away, they would catch you and kill you"

Hashem, west Mosul residentThe cheapest thing in Iraq is a human being

The battle for west Mosul has caused a civilian catastrophe:

Civilians in west Mosul have been ruthlessly exploited by the armed group calling itself the Islamic State (IS), which has systematically moved them into zones of conflict, used them as human shields, and prevented them from escaping to safety.

They have also been subjected to relentless unlawful attacks by Iraqi government forces and members of the US-led coalition (hereon referred to as pro-government forces). In March and May 2017,

Amnesty International researchers visited northern Iraq to document violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses by all sides of the conflict in west Mosul. The findings were published today in a new report: "At Any Cost: The Civilian Catastrophe in West Mosul, Iraq."

The Civilian Catastrophe:

More than 600,000 civilians have been displaced from west Mosul

More than 5,800 civilians may have been killed between 19 February and 19 June 2017 as a result of attacks by Iraqi and US-led coalition forces

3 million people currently internally displaced by the fighting in Iraq

Hundreds, if not thousands of civilians killed by IS as they tried to escape west Mosul

In an article that analyzes the Mosul war and whether victory there means the end of all troubles in this now destroyed ancient city, French philosopher and author Bernard-Henri Levy says that as the war in Mosul comes to an end the world must remember and acknowledge that it was the Kurdish Peshmerga that paved the way for Iraqi troops to reach the city in October of 2016.

For that reason, he argues, the world should thank the Kurds and stand behind them in their planned independence referendum in September.

“It was the Kurdish peshmerga that, in October and November 2016, opened Mosul’s gates for the Iraqis.” Levy writes in the Canadian Globe and Mail and Tablet magazine titled Mosul: A mission not yet accomplished.

“It is they who, for two long years, held fast (as England alone resisted the Nazis until well into 1941) while the Iraqi army recovered from the rout of August 2014; it is they who held a front line a thousand kilometers long before ultimately repelling the Islamic State. Fighters, they were, from the very start, sentinels of a free world that everywhere else was buckling under the Islamist surge.”

The French philosopher who has visited the Kurdistan Region on several occasions and made two films about the Peshmerga and their fight against ISIS wonders if the world who thanked the Kurds on the eve of the final battle, will “dismiss the historic role they played?”

On the Kurdish September 25 referendum, Levy suggests, the world will have two stances to choose from.

First is to: “To throw up a great hue and cry, as Ankara, Teheran, and Moscow have already done, to urge this erstwhile ally, no longer needed, to be a good little ally and to cool its heels: Let’s not add chaos to chaos, goes the argument; let’s not pour more powder into the powder keg of the area; no one needs a new state to further inflame a Middle East that is already complicated enough.”

And the second is to admit that Iraq is failing while Kurdistan, on the other hand, is prospering as a home for all religious and ethnic minorities.

“Or to heed the opposing voices contending that Iraq is the factitious state, a state born from the convulsions of the First World War, a colonial artifact. And to bring stability to the region nothing could be better, the counterargument continues, than to recognize a nation already endowed with solid democratic institutions, a culture of respect for non-Kurdish minorities and for women, a taste for secularism, a concern for good governance, and a sincere tilt toward the West.”

Levy dismisses the idea that an independent Kurdistan would cause instability and is confident that Kurdistan will be a force for good.

He writes: “Far from destabilizing the region, the emergence of a free Kurdistan would be a potent force for stability and peace.”

“The conclusion of the battle of Mosul challenges us all to make this heartfelt choice for justice and reason.”

Stream of floating bodies near Mosul raises fears of reprisals by Iraqi militiasFazel Hawramy in Qayyarah

Unidentified corpses are being fished out of the Tigris river, with human rights observers suggesting government forces are behind the deaths

The bodies washed up with grim regularity on the banks of the Tigris downstream from Mosul, a daily reminder of the vicious fight against Islamic State that played out a few dozen miles away.

All were heavily decomposed, most bound and blindfolded, some mutilated. The corpses began arriving last spring, but as the mission to oust Isis fighters from the once-thriving city intensified, so too did the number of dead floating towards the west bank town of Qayyarah.

“I see dead bodies in the water daily,” said Ahmed Mohammed, a driver, speaking earlier this year. “The number has increased since early April. There were five bodies floating in the river recently in one single day. They are young men with their hands tied behind their back and are blindfolded.”

Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi this week declared victory after nearly nine months of fierce fighting to displace the extremist group from the city where it proclaimed its “caliphate” in 2014. But as Mosul lies in ruins – and the last women and children emerge from the rubble – a bloody picture of the campaign’s impact is emerging.

Local people who spotted corpses midstream would try to catch them and then call the army, Mohammed said. Soldiers then take them to a makeshift morgue at the city’s general hospital, run by Mansour Maroof Mansour.

Most of the dead found in the river with some identifiable features intact were young men who appeared to be in their late 20s, said Mansour, but he has learned little else about who they were.

“We can’t identify the bodies in the river. They are very decomposed and there is nothing on them to use for identification,” he said, standing in a room filled with dozens of bodybags. None had been claimed, and even that toll of the unknown dead is not exhaustive; some bodies are lost.

“(Once) the body of a boy also floated by but we could not catch it as it was too small and went through the gaps in the barrier,” said the driver Mohammed, who is haunted by guilt at letting the young boy drift away.

Human rights organisations had raised alarm about the number of unsolved killings in and around Mosul city and in particular the corpses washing up along the Tigris river. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said evidence points to government forces, killing suspected Isis members or collaborators without trial or due process.

Warning of the killings in April, Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director for HRW said: “The bodies of bound and blindfolded men are being found one after the other in and around Mosul and in the Tigris river, raising serious concerns about extrajudicial killings by government forces. The lack of any apparent government action to investigate these deaths undermines the government’s statements on protecting detainee rights.”

Little has been done to investigate the killings, however. “The horrors that the people of Mosul have witnessed and the disregard for human life by all parties to this conflict must not go unpunished,” Lynn Maalouf, research director for Amnesty International in the Middle East, said.

The violence upstream casts a long shadow in Qayyarah, which was freed from Isis rule at the start of the nine-month Mosul campaign. Most residents are reluctant even to talk about the bodies in the river. “I don’t know anything about that subject,” said one fishmonger in the newly re-opened market, buzzing with soldiers and militia fighters.

Isis exploited Iraq’s sectarian tensions to facilitate its rise to power. Many Sunnis who felt disenfranchised by the Shia majority government or feared becoming targets of security forces welcomed or at least tolerated the group’s arrival in 2014. As the extremism and violence of Isis world view became clearer, many Sunnis left or privately turned against the group, but suspicions of collaboration linger and in some Sunni areas a sense of apprehension remains.

“Blood for blood,” reads graffiti on a wall of a house in Qayyarah that locals say belonged to Ali Khether, a well-known Isis commander who had lived in the town. He is described by one as “The child of adultery, Ali Khether, the Daeshi” – a name that refers to Daesh, a pejorative name for Isis.

Close by stands the town’s small stadium where Isis, with the aid of local people, killed dozens, with the most cursory of trials, on charges ranging from spying for the security services to homosexuality

Now as Isis retreats to the Syrian city of Raqqa and desert areas of western Iraq, those who were on the receiving end of their brutality for over two years have set up their own militia groups. Loosely attached to the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU), they are taking the law into their own hands.

“PMU militias have carried out a systematic pattern of violations, including enforced disappearance, extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings and torture of Sunni Arab men and boys, seemingly in revenge for IS attacks,” said Amnesty International in a report earlier this year.

Security forces who retook the town found the bodies of many Isis victims that had been dumped in the river, said Walid Khaled an officer at Qayyarah police station, but he had no idea who the more recent waves of dead might be. “We don’t know where they come from, they are unidentified,” he said.

Some in the town say the bodies are more Isis victims killed by the last fighters holed up in Mosul, but the Iraqi security forces had blocked the river around 20km outside the city with a floating boom designed to stop fighters sneaking out or reinforcements getting in by water. Territory further down river towards Qayyarah has been in the control of Iraqi security forces for months.

A soldier guarding a floating bridge connecting Munirah village, around 20km south of Mosul on the western bank, refused to give his name, but appeared to confirm that extrajudicial killings were taking place beside the river.

He showed the Guardian a video of himself and other soldiers, dragging a limp body with a bloody face along the edge of the water. “He was Daesh hiding in the reeds and we killed him,” the soldier said with satisfaction.

The Iraqi government has said it investigating a graphic video which appears to show its forces throwing Isis militants being thrown over a cliff and then shot.

The footage which has been shared online, shows uniformed men dragging a bloodied, unarmed man to the edge of a cliff and throwing him over.

After he lands on another body around 30ft below, he is shot numerous times.

The clip was shared on the Mosul Eye Twitter account, which was set up by an independent historian who regularly posts information about fighting in northern Iraqi city.

Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, spokesperson for the Joint Operations Command said they were "keenly observing and following what is being published in social media outlets about the conduct of a number of our soldiers, or those who are wearing uniforms."

He added: "We are following this affair very closely, and all the leadership of Iraqi forces and military are keen to know the details of this matter... If there’s any violation of human rights from any force – counterterrorism forces, police, army, they will be held accountable militarily and we will be really severe.”

He did not confirm the clip's authenticity.

Instead, he said: "Don’t forget that those who would like to reduce the joy and the confidence we have found from this victory, maybe these videos are being fabricated."

But he added that they would "look into this matter very carefully and we will hold anybody who committed that act severely.”

However, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has verified the location of the video using satellite imagery, according to BBC

A recent report by the organisation alleged numerous human rights abuses by Iraqi forces, which it accused of “beating and unlawfully killing men and boys fleeing Mosul.”

Four witnesses told the activist group that they had also executed unarmed men.

Another witness claimed that three Emergency Response Division and Iraqi Force (ISF) members told him they were executing unarmed men thought to be part of Isis, rather than detaining them - a breech of international law.

Two other witnesses recounted an incident in which Iraqi uniformed soldiers picked at least six men and boys out of a crowd of civilians at a checkpoint and assaulted them before driving them away.

One said: “I have heard of countless abuses and executions in this battle. But what’s changed is that in this final phase fighters are no longer hiding what they are doing and are comfortable allowing us to witness the abuses first-hand.”

An article published by a Swedish news outlet dated over three weeks before the victory, and written by a Swedish journalist who was on the frontline, states a Federal Police Officer had said he decapitated at least 50 men with knives.

HRW have documented Iraqi forces detaining thousands of men in inhumane conditions; of torture under the pretext of Isis screening, and in some cases even extrajudicial killings.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi formally declared victory over Isis in Mosul on Monday after nine months of hard fighting. He said the triumph marks the “collapse” of the self-proclaimed caliphate.